sample="rhetorical" bates="2056136170" isource="pm" decade="1990" class="ui" date="19951000/E" DRAFT Introduction to be added. Ammonia is naturally present in tobacco. Several ammonia compounds also are used in the cigarette manufacturing process as processing aides and flavorants. [ For example, Philip Morris U.S.A. uses diammonium phosphate (DAP), an ammonia-related compound, in making one type of reconstituted tobacco to solubilize the natural tobacco pectin, which then holds the tobacco fragments together to form a tobacco sheet that is used as part of the cigarette blend.] * Reconstituted tobacco has been used for over 25 years as part of the tobacco blend in a cigarette. Philip Morris U.S.A. also uses several ammonia compounds to give a flavor or feel similar to what one feels in the throat from the carbonation of a soft drink, the "hot" in chili peppers, or the "cool feeling" of mint. Such use of ammonia flavorants is not unique to Philip Morris U.S.A. or the cigarette industry. Ammonia compounds are used in a variety of consumer products including beverages, ice cream, ices, gelatin, puddings, and baked goods. sentence was reworded (new version available in NYO) Philip Morris U.S.A.'s use of ammonia compounds has been public knowledge for many years. Those manufacturing processes that utilize ammonia compounds have been described in published articles and patents which were filed with the government. Further, the tobacco industry list of ingredients submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services since 1986 includes the ammonia compounds used by Philip Morris. Contrary to the charges made by The Wall Street Journal and others, Philip Morris U.S.A. does not use ammonia in the cigarette manufacturing process to increase the amount of nicotine inhaled by the smoker, to "affect the rate of absorption of nicotine in to the bloodstream of the smoker," or to "increase the potency of the nicotine a smoker actually inhales." If, as the Wall Street Journal asserts, Philip Morris U.S.A. were using ammonia to increase nicotine deliveries of lower tar cigarettes, one would expect that as tar and nicotine deliveries of Marlboro have fallen over the past twenty years, ammonia levels would have increased. But that is simply not the case. Over the past two decades, the amount of ammonia in Marlboro has remained nearly constant. This, of course, is precisely the opposite of what one would expect if, as the Wall Street Journal and others have charged, Philip Morris were using ammonia to "enhance nicotine delivery to smokers." As we understand it, the sole basis for the false charges in today's Journal article is a document we haven't seen from one of our leading competitors speculating about why Philip Moris' Marlboro is the world's best selling cigarette. If the author of that document were correct that the use of ammonia -- a long-known processing aid and flavorant used in many industries -- was "the key factor" in Marlboro's success, one would expect that our competitors would have duplicated this process and would have been far more successful in the marketplace than they have been.